


Whilst You Abide Here

by philodox



Category: Antony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare
Genre: (but also slightly drunk), Bromance, Enobarbs and Agrippa Are Sad, Gen, National Theatre 2018, No Poetry, angsty fluff, fem!Agrippa, so this has very little to do with the original play and even less to do with history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philodox/pseuds/philodox
Summary: "Good Enobarbus! Make yourself my guest? Whilst you abide here.""Humbly, madam, I thank you."There's no place Enobarbus would rather be.
Relationships: Agrippa & Enobarbus
Kudos: 3





	Whilst You Abide Here

"I don't like your most honourable commander," Enobarbus admits one evening, when their conversation turns spicier than peppered wine in their cups. Such a cold fish, that Octavian, Pompey must have been no less than an octopus to prevail at sea.  
  
"And I don't like yours much these days," Agrippa shrugs, touching the remaining strings; poor harp barely survived Enobarbus' attempt to prove musical skills.  
  
"Would that they exchanged places."  
  
"Why? You have just said you're not that fond of the man."  
  
"No, not their offices," he pulls a string to sigh in his stead, "just, you know, _places_."  
  
"I don't think so," she laughs abruptly, pinching his sleeve. "Were it not you who crossed my doorstep with shoes full of Egyptian sand — and that's after we cleaned you up?"  
  
"Isn't it very Roman to frequent baths?"  
  
"How do Egyptians take their baths, pray tell? More liquid gold?"  
  
"So that's what you wish they'd made of me, a golden statue instead of this poor body at your doorstep?"  
  
"I wouldn't want them to make my statue indeed," she nods, dropping the wretched instrument and putting her arm around his neck, "there's savagery in their monuments."  
  
And Agrippa's worthy of timeless decency, that much is true.  
  
Bitter prize for his observing eye: unfamiliar wrinkles on her jocund face. Must be a recent acquisition; let no one say Caesar's avaricious with payment.  
  
"Won't you have problems?"  
  
"Problems?"  
  
"Fraternizing with Antony's soldier in the open?"  
  
"Aren't we supposed to be," here comes a caress close enough to chokehold, "siblings in arms through dearest Octavia? Or cousins, being times removed? Anyway, I'll say it was a cunning recon of your plans."  
  
"Good gods, to believe in friendship in our lamentable days!"  
  
She rewards his feigned frown as a proper devotee of Risus.  
  
"Don't look so gloomy! I'll make sure you'll be treated with respect when you return on our side."  
  
" _I_ will return?" The thought is startling, and stinging, and strangely multilayered. "I will _return_?"  
  
"Well, it wasn't me who left for Eastern feasts!"  
  
"I never left my duty."  
  
Agrippa's gracious enough not to reply he's all but packing now.  
  
"This alliance may yet outlive our fears," and that's the only soothing his honesty can give.  
  
"Octavia is above all doubt; but you told me yourself Antony's virtue doesn't stand a chance against his vice."  
  
"You hate him too much."  
  
"As long as I see more to hate than to like."  
  
"You do see me beside him," his hands reach for a usual weight of comfort, encircling her palm, "isn't that enough to like?"  
  
"To see you beside him means not having you for ourselves, what's there to like?"  
  
Most arguments come down to choosing. And while the possibility to choose might be blessing, the necessity to choose is calamity.  
  
"You'd never betray Caesar," Enobarbus smiles, knowing full well her answer.  
  
"I'd never betray Rome."  
  
"It will always end up here, won't it?"  
  
"At least that way we're never-ending."  
  
She's still hugging him when she falls asleep, noble luxury of trust surpassing all others. Enobarbus breathes deeply, taking in the indelible smell — nothing faint for one who never fainted; marjoram, carrier of happy tidings and guardian of peaceful rest.  
  
Agrippa smells like home.


End file.
